North Korea looks to have bucked market trends heading into December 2015, earning just 6 percent less from its coal exports to China than over the same period last year, Chinese customs figures show.

Shipments of coal to neighboring China are the DPRK’s most lucrative export, with Chinese customs data showing only a relatively small decrease to $970 million so far in 2015, from a little more than $1 billion in the first eleven months of last year.

The numbers go against turmoil in world markets, which have seen commodity prices tumble mostly amid slowing Chinese demand, and local